My brother and I grew up in a single-parent household with just my mother. My mom was strict more often than not due to having to raise two neurodivergent children by herself. She would come home from corralling the airmen she worked with on the nearby military base and have to work on controlling and teaching me and my brother the life skills necessary for us to be functioning adults. Throughout our childhood, my brother and I could not get fancy toys or everything we wanted for Christmas, but we never went hungry, and for that, I am thankful. My father was not in the picture for most of my early life, however, once my brother and I passed around 10, our father began to reach out again. For several years after that, our father was in and out of our lives. He would reach out to have us come over during the summers, and he would send small gifts and cards for birthdays and Christmas. But then he moved to Florida, and when my brother and I went to visit, things seemed slightly different. To this day, I am not sure what was different, but I know that shortly after that, our father stopped talking and taking an interest in my brother and his activities. Our father was more dismissive of his interests and his struggles. My brother does not talk to our father anymore, and I am on friendly terms as a bit of a middleman. The last time I saw my father in person was for my high school graduation. He was late to the ceremony, and he was an hour and a half late to the beach afterward, where I was supposed to meet him. This experience taught me something: though I love my father, I will rarely be able to count on him. Since that time, I have had little interaction with my father outside of keeping him up to date on my brother, who has cut him out of his life. This has all made me understand my mother more, that though we butted heads often as I was growing up, she is the best mom I could ever want, and everything she has ever done has always been to help me, from the chores I hated to do to the lessons she taught me about life and economics. I will forever be grateful for my mother.

I am passionate about helping animals because it's what I believe is best. There are all sorts of hurts and pains in this world. So much effort is put into furthering human advancement, but very little is put into caring for the other creatures of our world. I want to be able to help where I can, and it seems to me that I would be most beneficial and be able to put the most good in the world by becoming a veterinarian. Thousands of deer and other large animals are hit every year, injured and killed because there is not a large animal vet nearby who is able or willing to help them, As vets begin to age out of their practice, many new gaps in the market are opening that are not being filled because there are not enough people interested in the field. My own experiences are many. I spent all 4 years of high school enrolled in the animal sciences pathway. The first year had us taking care of the school's chickens and goats. During this time, we learned the basic care for most large ruminants and poultry. During the second year, we helped raise the professor's piglets and goat kids. However, this was during lockdown, so there was not much we were able to do. During the third year of my animal science high school career, we took care of a second litter of piglets, during this year, we castrated them, gave them injection vaccinations, and fed them. During my final year of animal science, it was my direct responsibility to care for the chickens, replace food, water, and clean the coop. I helped take care of the goats and kids, which involved cleaning and refilling the water dishes, as well as refilling food and cleaning the stalls. Outside of school, I volunteered at Noah Ark Animal Rescue, while there, I helped to take care of the horses by cleaning stalls, refilling the water basin, and preparing food and medicine. I also prepared food for their pigs and helped to prep and stack the hay bales we used to feed the horses. I was tasked with scouring the yard to ensure that it was clean for the animals to wander in. I was asked to help with fundraisers, taking stock of the materials. This all has given me a strong working knowledge of veterinary practice and the understanding necessary to make a difference with animals.

I have done quite a lot to help improve my community. I volunteered my time at an animal rescue for two years up until I had to leave the state for college, while I was volunteering I would help feed animals, pick up waste in the horse stalls, and move It out into the woods where it could decompose, I would also socialize with the rescue dogs to ensure they would be able to find homes, including an adorable senior dog names breezy, who had an unfortunate habit of howling and barking, which made her quite the chatterbox for visitors. I would spend several hours every weekend at this rescue and I was sad when I had to leave. This helped to teach me how much I like and appreciate animals, including how much I enjoy spending time with them. However, this alone hasn't made me want to pursue a career in veterinary medicine. My largest driving factor has been, how much I generally want to help people and animals, coupled with a good knowledge of biology led me to decide that veterinary medicine would be my best career path, not only would I be able to apply my mind in ways I felt comfortable with, but I would be able to help animals big and small in ways that would help my community. The second largest reason I want to become a veterinarian is to open my practice, in my area, there are quite a few general vets and they can usually help with a lot of things. However as time has gone on they have become more and more expensive and I would like to open a veterinary clinic that works for the animals and people in my community, offering cheaper more affordable care so that no animals have to suffer because their owners cannot afford the cost of their medicine, and so that no owners have to stand by helplessly as their pets suffer from issues that are simple but costly to fix. Another big reason that I want to become a veterinarian is so I can further my knowledge in all areas of veterinary medicine. This corresponds with my previous reason for wanting to become a veterinarian but it also requires background knowledge. My family had a dog named Holly, she was a purebred Scottish Terrier. She was a sweet dog until she became sick, for a year we went to different vets trying to figure out what was wrong until we learned she was having liver issues, her liver was dying and trying to replace itself with scar tissue, because of this her liver values were going all over the place and she was becoming very aggressive. We must have spent thousands of dollars trying to figure out what was wrong, and even when we did couldn't fix it. We did everything we could to make her time with us comfortable before she passed away in late November last year. To finally figure out what was wrong we had to see a specialist 3 hours' drive away, and this has led me to want to become a strongly educated veterinary practitioner so that important knowledge that can help animals live longer better lives isn't kept out of reach due to proximity or cost.

From the earliest point in my life, I have had an appreciation for animals. As a kid I would always hang out with the pets of my moms friends, I would always be more excited to see animals than I would be to see toys, and at every point in my life I have considered a career that has at least some animal interaction. After middle school I had decided I wanted to be a veterinarian, I took agriculture and veterinary courses offered by my high school, and I took science classes I thought may be useful for a job as a vet. However, in high school we had to put down my first dog, she had been with us for close to eight years before her quality of life was too poor to keep her around. I was with her when the veterinarian put her down, and I must say that the experience shook me. For several years I did not know if I wanted to be a veterinarian, because I couldn't think of being a vet without remembering how I cried as my dog slowly became more and more distant from me while I sat next to her. As I have moved through my freshman year of college I have realized that veterinarian is the only job I can do. I want to help people, I have a fascination with how things work, and I love animals. This led me back to the idea of veterinary sciences. So far I have moved forward with my study of general biology and I intend to continue to study and learn so that I can continue on to a veterinary college once my undergraduates degree is finished. Once I finish my veterinary education my intentions are to join the army as an officer to pay off any debts I may accrue, and to get valuable job experience before I enter the the job market, as many job in todays economy require you to have a degree and several years of experience before you can get a job anywhere. If its possible I would also like to save money and either continue my education as a vet to become a large animal vet and exotic animal vet, or I would like to open my own practice in an area out in the country where I can help people who may not have as much access to a veterinarian for their animals.

There are many major problems in todays world, social, political, economic, environmental, religious, ethics, all of these subject have problems that require fixing. The major issues I intend to cover are the growing greenhouse gas effect happening all over the world, and the decline sea life populations. The idea of a greenhouse gas effect is there are molecular gases that can be found in the atmosphere which hold the heat and thermal energy in the earths atmosphere instead of giving it off, this causes the planets surface temperature to heat up. A main greenhouse gas is carbon dioxide, carbon-dioxide is the gas created by all piecing respiratory creatures. But this is also taken and used by photosynthetic creatures. The creature that make the biggest difference are not what most people would think, most people assume the trees consume the most carbon dioxide. The creatures that actually consume the most are phytoplankton in the oceans. These creatures use chlorophyll and sunlight to turn carbon dioxide and water into sugar and O2. These creatures could help reduce the worlds greenhouse gases, thus slowing the greenhouse effect and helping to cool Earth. There is proof that iron fertilization increases the population of phytoplankton. With the proper funding and time, experiments could be done to see what effects iron fertilization has on the environment and the ecosystems where it would be taking place. With proper knowledge of the impacts of iron fertilization and the proper funding to put plans into action, fertilizing parts of the ocean to boost phytoplankton growth would be a great way to lower the amounts of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, cooling the planet and ultimately helping to reduce the surface temperature of the earth. There have been a few experiments with this already and it has worked. There were also signs that ocean fertilization boosts the populations of the entire ecosystem as phytoplankton are the base of the food web allowing for more prey animals to eat them and reproduce producing a larger prey population for the larger predators to eat from, this may also have the effect of boosting the fishing economies and producing a greater number of food for growing and sustaining a larger human population. This plan to fertilize the oceans would solve to major issues within the environment, the issues of greenhouse gases, and the issues of declining sea life population, this is something I believe could be of great importance all I would need to accomplish it is time and money.

I have been called many things in life, hard headed, crazy, but these are not my biggest attributes. My biggest attributes that make me unique are my curiosity, my hard working on things I’m interested in, and my kindness. To start with, my curiosity is something that has always driven me. When I was young I was always interested in plants and animals, a curiosity I have to this day. It has allowed me to learn a great deal in many plant and animal related areas. I have learned first how to hunt. I learned due to the massive impact hunting can have on ecology and natural populations. This is interesting because it’s best to learn all aspects of what you’re interested in. I have taken 3 courses on plant science through my high school career. The first class was mostly about the marketable plants in the agriscience field. The second class was mainly about greenhouses and how to ensure the proper care for plants that you would prepare for market such as poinsettias and other potted plants. The third plant science course was about the science of plants and working to produce and sell plants in the greenhouses owned by our school. In this course I learned the many functions of different elements used in plants, i along with several of my classmates worked to plant and grow many types of plants from flowers to vegetables to herbs. All of which were later sold to parents and members of the community. I have also taken 4 courses in animal science. In first course we learned about marketable animals, pigs, cattle, sheep, chickens. The second course was about the anatomy of animals. My third course was a veterinary course focused on medical practices for domestic animals and pets. My fourth year we are taking care of the animals raised at the school. This shows my immense curiosity and interest and how my curiosity drives me to learn more and more about what I am interested in. My hard working attributes are best shown in my work towards achieving my black belt in martial arts. Since I was in elementary school I have been practicing taekwondo martial arts. In the 10+ years I have been practicing I have faced hardships to slow my ability to progress but through this I have worked hard to continue improving and because of this I have reached my second degree black belt. The second degree black belt is the second level of black belt, it requires 3 extra years of training to attain after the first degree black belt. After achieving this I have continued to work hard, now I am working towards my third degree black belt and I help train students. Finally my kindness attribute. I have worked from childhood to help those in need. I have volunteered time on base to feed the overnight shifts and I have volunteered time to care for animals at Noah’s arc animal rescue. I have also worked to ensure the students I help train at my martial arts school are as well trained as they possibly can be, this is because I feel that if my students should ever need to defend themselves they should be able to do that to their utmost ability. I have and continue to work hard at that and ensure they work hard as well.

I have been in Martial Arts since I was in Elementary school. I have learned that hard work and dedication are integral to success of any kind. It is important that to also push yourself to do the best you possibly can. I remember one incident when I was in elementary school and I was having a difficult time grasping fractions. I worked for several hours at home on academic practice web sites trying to learn fractions. There were many time since then, when I have wanted to relax and stop practicing martial arts or studying for school, but I knew, and I know that hard work is what gets you the best results and because of that I currently have a 4.0 GPA and a second degree black belt. All thanks to the hard work I put in and the lessons I learned while studying martial arts. I don’t want to waste your time or be disrespectful with boasts. I have told you the most important lesson I have learned from my thirteen years in martial arts training. I hope you have a wonderful day.